The Last of Us is the latest title from the makers of Uncharted, a studio that has become one of Sony's brightest lights during a PS3 era that's drawing to a close. Needless to say, expectations are at an all-time high.

Fortunately, with a gorgeous art style and beautiful game world, an emotive and compelling story, a cast of diverse and believable characters, as well as some dangerous and downright scary monsters, The Last of Us is another must-have release from the team at Naughty Dog.

The Last of Us takes place 20 years after a fungal virus has turned most of humankind into savage killers.

Players assume the role of a smuggler named Joel, whose latest job involves transporting a teenage girl named Ellie out of a military zone and into the hands of a rebel group known as the Fireflies.

The Fireflies believe that there is a cure to the affliction, but their numbers are dwindling after years of clashes with the military.

Despite his reluctance to choose a side, Joel eventually agrees to take the job and so begins a journey that takes the duo across a post-pandemic America.

Central to the narrative is the relationship between Joel and Ellie, two survivors who couldn't be more different.

The narrative is complemented by the game's hauntingly beautiful landscape. While most post-apocalyptic games are dirty, grey and bleak, post-pandemic America is lush and green, but ripe with danger.

Ellie was born after the pandemic and has never left the military zone, while Joel has lived on both sides of the outbreak and experienced his fair share of loss.

Their differences are summed up perfectly during an early exchange in which an awestruck Ellie remarks about the beauty of an overgrown skyscraper, while Joel is only concerned about the dangers that lie within.

While most of the game's important and powerful moments are told through cutscenes, it's the conversations between Joel and Ellie that prove the most poignant, and make you feel closer to the characters.

It's not only your relationship with Joel and Ellie that benefit from these exchanges, but also with the numerous other survivors that join your party along the way.

The payoff, of course, is that when you do experience loss, betrayal and hardships, it hits you twice as hard. It's this combination of casual chatter and dramatic cutscene that makes The Last of Us such a compelling game from start to finish.

The narrative is complemented by the game's hauntingly beautiful landscape. While most post-apocalyptic games are dirty, grey and bleak, post-pandemic America is lush and green, but ripe with danger.

Taking place over multiple seasons, players are able to view this new and formidable world not only in scorching sunlight, but also under a thick layer of snow and brown autumn leaves. Seeing Mother Nature reclaim the land really is quite stunning.

The beauty of the outdoors is offset by murky underground sewers and subway stations, as well as decaying skyscrapers and abandoned town houses. And while you're never safe in The Last of Us, it's within these interiors that you feel most vulnerable.

Clickers, which have mutated from years of fungal growth within the brain, are the most common threat, and also the most deadly. Known for the clicking sound they make, they have the ability to locate their victims through movement and sound.

While they can be avoided altogether, seeing a Clicker on the charge is sure to set the heart racing. One particularly terrifying scene sees Joel attempt to pry a door open without alerting a college dorm packed with Bloaters (an overgrown variant).

Stalkers, meanwhile, are highly aggressive, infected and run at victims in packs. They're not as deadly as Clickers, but much harder to avoid and more difficult to shoot.

Players can fight them hand-to-hand, with guns or by using stealth tactics, such as choke holds or throwing diversionary objects. If a Stalker spots you, however, you're really going to struggle without a molotov or nail bomb.

With supplies hard to come by, The Last of Us is a challenging game, even on the easiest setting. Without exercising caution and using bullets wisely, players are sure to die a lot.

In this respect, The Last of Us feels a lot like a survival horror game. Not only does the lack of bullets ramp up the tension, but it also encourages strategical experimentation, which leads to a more varied experience.

Unfortunately for Joel and Ellie, Clickers and Stalkers are only half of the problem. Scavengers and military personnel also pose a threat, and are much more likely to open fire and engage in gunfights.

While the gun combat is my least favourite part of the game, there are very few sections that actively require the use of firearms over stealth, save for a few genuinely exciting set-pieces involving sniper rifles, booby traps and hordes of infected.

There are also times when Ellie must provide cover fire, unlock doors and spring Joel from traps.

Though not quite as useful as Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite, Ellie can hold her own which ensures The Last of Us doesn't succumb to the same pitfalls that have plagued past escort missions.

On the downside, the game could do with a few more puzzles - most involve powering generators or simply finding makeshift ladders - while the lack of weapon holsters seems like an unnecessary inconvenience. These are very small criticisms, however, in an otherwise excellent game.

Outside of the 12-hour campaign, The Last of Us contains an online multiplayer mode in which players must side with either the Fireflies or Hunters in 12 in-game weeks worth of deathmatches to grow your clan and survive until extraction.

Naughty Dog

Supply Raid is a traditional team-deathmatch in which two teams attempt to score the most points by wiping out the opposition and gathering supplies, while Survival gives you a single life in a best-of-seven series.

The actual in-game action is nothing extraordinary, in fact, it's a little on the basic side.

Searching for supplies and hunting down opposition is fun, especially when games go to sudden death, but maps aren't particularly interactive, and there are few objectives beyond killing and scavenging.

Though not quite as useful as Elizabeth from BioShock Infinite, Ellie can hold her own, ensuring that The Last of Us doesn't succumb to the same pitfalls that have plagued past escort missions.

More interesting is the context in which games take place. Winning games and gathering supplies adds more survivors to your ranks.

If your numbers fall to zero, you're forced to start again from week one. Considering that each deathmatch represents one day in the calendar, and clans can be lost in an instant, the stakes are incredibly high.

The game also introduces cataclysmic events, such as hostage situations, which force players to train in specific disciplines to avoid losing members of the clan.

If you perform three executions, for example, you might only lose 10% of your clan, six results in losses of 5%, while nine keeps the entire clan alive.

It certainly goes some way towards making up for a lack of team-based and dynamic objectives, and is a very clever way of encouraging players to try different character classes and master new skills.

While we would have liked some additional modes, dynamic maps, and interaction with the clan outside of status updates and stats, keeping the numbers above zero is surprisingly compulsive, especially when you close in on that 12-week goal.

With a hauntingly beautiful game world, stunning visuals, and a wide variety of ways in which players can approach combat, The Last of Us is another exceptional game from the team at Naughty Dog.

However, it's the studio's ability to make this past-pandemic world and its contrasting cast of characters feel so believable and credible that really makes The Last of Us stand out from its peers.

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